Progress On Roger’s Shield

So like any other artist, inspiration seems to come from anywhere. Nature, music, even conversations with people. I was recently inspired to to re-create Steve Roger’s shield when I saw Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron (I know, I’m a nerd, but what artist isn’t?).

I like the way light interacts with it. With the different play of specularity with the painted vs. unpainted parts, and also the way it was designed for the movies. It’s interesting to look at.

I gathered quite a few references, one being from the first Avengers movie where Method Studios showcases their end credits title sequence, and others I gathered from a quick search through Google Images. The end title sequence of the first movie showcases the different assets the heroes possess with one of them being Cap’s shield.

I found the lighting and shader work in this particularly sequence to be very appealing and it’s the one reference I’m going make an effort to replicate in my own way. With the feel and the composition, I think it’ll be fun to attack such a challenge.

So here’s what I’ve done thus far, I created the shield using Autodesk Maya and also managed to do a little shader work. The most challenging part was getting the brushed metal feel, but thanks to Materialism blogspot’s tutorial on radial anisotropy, I managed to partially get the feel that I’m after. The image below shows the progress I’ve made thus far with a quick mock up I did in Photoshop playing with ideas for a comp.

I’m still looking to make some changes to the shader since the painted parts interact with light differently compared to the unpainted parts in some of the references I’ve viewed. So I’m going to continue to work on the shader, and the feel of the shield until I find it to be up standards of what I’m looking for. I’ll post more progress images in the coming days.